


Smoke and Mirrors

by stilitana



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Allison Hargreeves-centric, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gen, Identity Issues, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:28:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27403549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stilitana/pseuds/stilitana
Summary: She’d find the right string of words someday, the magic words that would conjure the long-dead childhood pet rabbit back out of the hat, whole and healthy, and everyone would scream with joy when they saw that everything was saved, because she had seen that it was good and should be so.-A vignette-style exploration of some scenes from Allison's life, pre-season one.
Relationships: Allison Hargreeves & Diego Hargreeves, Allison Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, The Hargreeves Family
Comments: 9
Kudos: 33





	Smoke and Mirrors

**Author's Note:**

> Hello dear reader, I hope you enjoy this little exploration of Allison's character. 
> 
> Allison's audition monologue is quoted from here: [Contents Flammable.](https://monologueblogger.com/contents-flammable-drama-2-minutes/)  
> Feel free to connect with me [on tumblr.](https://stilitana.tumblr.com/)  
> Oh, and here's my [Allison playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6KV4K1uswOIZSpUt2xVpVC?si=1CnfzBYzSjSGt4c1SfgjRA) on Spotify, if that's relevant to anyone's interests. It's a work in progress, I'm always adding songs. 
> 
> Feel free to leave comments/critique! And as always, thank you for reading. <3

She finds a therapist whose face she can imagine herself growing to hate and books her first appointment, walks in eight minutes late after sitting in her car in the parking lot losing time. The office is homely—beige carpet, potted Ficus, pink rock salt lamp on the desk. The therapist looks like someone she imagines drives a minivan cluttered with cheap toys, wears yoga pants to the grocery store to buy individual packets of carrots and yogurt to pack in lunchboxes, talks to the other moms at soccer practice about spin class. There is a framed picture of two perfect grinning children on her desk and Allison thinks, _yes, I can feel it, I could grow to hate you quite nicely._

“These sessions can be whatever you want them to be,” the therapist says. “Why don’t we start by talking about what you’d like to get out of coming here?” 

The couch she’s sitting on is too soft, she sinks right into it. “I thought it was your job to tell me why I need to be here.” 

The therapist laughs, shakes her head. Allison isn’t sure what’s funny, but then, people tend to laugh when she’s around, baring their necks, wanting something from her. To be close. In cahoots. “Over the phone, you talked about having trouble sleeping,” she says. “We could start there.” 

“I sleep just fine,” Allison says. “Like a baby. My head hits the pillow and I’m out.” 

The therapist nods. 

“It’s my brother who has trouble sleeping. Actually, all my brothers do. And maybe my sister, but I don’t know. It’s the rest of them who should be seeing you. I’m the only one who doesn’t need it. I think that’s why I’m here.” 

“Could you explain that a bit more for me?” 

She can. 

“I sleep just fine, I don’t get bad dreams. I never think about or remember things that have happened to me, unless I mean to, on purpose. I can hold down a job. I make rent. I can have one, two drinks, then stop. I work hard at my career, but not like it’s an obsession, not just to keep myself busy. I enjoy what I do. I’m able to be interested in things and feel happy about as often as I think most normal people do. I can read the news and get upset sometimes, but it doesn’t ruin my day, it doesn’t keep me up at night. I have boundaries. I know there are some things I can change, and I work to change them. There are other things I can’t, and I accept that and don’t dwell on it. Sometimes I get down, but then I go for a run, or treat myself to something I’d like, a nice meal or a movie or something, and I feel better nine times out of ten, which I think is much more than most can say. I could be more charitable, I think, but I do help when I can, there are a few places I donate every year. I’m very well-adjusted. I don’t know how much more well-adjusted I could be.” 

“That’s all good to hear.” 

“Yes,” she says, looking to her left, through the cheap vertical blinds, out the window, where the sunlight floods the parking lot. The other day she walked past someone curled up asleep on a park bench and had to do a double take. His curls, his nose, his bony pallor. But it wasn’t anyone she knew, so she kept walking. “It is, isn’t it?” 

She met her first real boyfriend in the student film club on campus, where he was a sophomore physiology major working as a TA and she was a first-year freshman without a clue. He was kind to her—saw through the false charm and stand-offish defensiveness she’d shrouded herself in, and welcomed her into the group with grace and ease, so that it seemed she’d always belonged there. Later she would learn he was like that with everybody. When she thought she might be able to develop feelings for him, the relief nearly brought her to her knees and she wished she had a god to thank. He looked nothing like anyone she’d ever known before. If she could have feelings for him, she must not be broken. And she knew she would be all right and had made the right choice, to leave. 

He liked Wes Anderson movies. When she said she’d never heard of him and had never seen one before, instead of acting shocked and making her feel like an idiot, he was thrilled. “I wish I were you,” he said. “So I could see them for the first time—but the next best thing would be getting to be the one to introduce you.” 

She liked how he said that—introduce her, as if he knew Mr. Anderson himself and was going to arrange a meeting. Instead, when it came time for the group to vote on next week’s viewing, he put up _Moonrise Kingdom_ , which won out against the war drama and the black and white film the club’s leader, a quiet junior film major, had selected. (Years later, she’d find that film again, the one called _Persona,_ and it would feel like a sign. Whether a good or a bad one, she wouldn't be able to tell. There was some mysterious power in the mute actress who had chosen not to speak, a power she couldn't understand. There seemed to be a secret in her silence. She wanted to wade deep into that mystery and find all the things she didn't know the names of yet.) 

When he asked her what she thought of the movie, she told him truthfully that she hadn’t been quite sure what to make of it. He said that was fair, but would she like to tell him more over coffee? 

“It’s his energy that I really like,” he told her, talking about Wes Anderson. “Like he’s a kid who’s got something really wonderful he wants to show you, and he’ll grab your face and turn it in the right direction if he has to.” 

“I can see that,” she said. 

She wanted to be able to talk about movies the way he did—to be able to put into words what they meant to her. She’d never been able to watch whatever she wanted before, whenever she wanted. When she got back to the tiny apartment she shared with two other girls, she looked up a list of movies everyone should see before they died. It was a long list, but she had to start somewhere. 

Later, on the sofa in his apartment, they would watch _The Life Aquatic_ and _The Grand Budapest Hotel_ , _Bottle Rocket_ and _The Fantastic Mr. Fox_. When the screen went dark she would sit very still, watching the credits as he chatted excitedly about the movie, before going quiet and wrapping his arm around her. “Hey...are you all right?” 

“Yes,” she would say, her voice even and composed, but sounding as if it came from the other side of a tunnel. Without turning to look at him, she’d say, “I was just thinking that my brother would like these movies, I think.” More than she did. 

“Oh. How old’s your brother? Is he in school too?” They’d never talked about her family. If he knew who she was by her last name, he’d never brought it up. 

“No,” she said. It wasn’t really her, talking to him. It was someone else, only a talking mask. That made it easy to tell him the truth. “He died. Then I moved out, and now I’m here.” 

He said he was sorry. So sorry. She said it was fine. She had other brothers. She’d lost two but there were still three to spare. She thought that was funny, but he didn’t laugh. 

Sometimes he tried to get her to open up to him about her life, but she only wanted to talk about the movies. She had fallen in love with the movies. They were more than life, better than life. She wanted to find some way to feel like she did when the music swelled and the screen lit up all the time. She’d always felt like this, but now there was nothing in the way, nothing standing between her and her love. She tried to grow the feeling so that one day it would be big enough to eat her alive, so that what she loved would swallow her and she would be inside of it forever. 

The final movie they watched together was _The Royal Tenenbaums_ , once they’d watched the rest of the Wes Anderson movies. “I saved the best for last,” he said. 

In the movie, Gwyneth Paltrow wore a tan fur coat and white gloves, smoked a cigarette in the bathtub, her eyes ringed with smudged kohl. She got off the Green Line Bus and walked in slow motion towards the one she loved while Nico sang and the camera panned across their faces like a lover’s caress, eaten alive by each others’ eyes while Allison watched, now a third partner in this feast of the eyes. She looked her brother in the face and said, “I think we’re just gonna have to be secretly in love with each other and leave it at that.” Then she had another cigarette, her hair lank and yellow. 

When the movie was over, the boyfriend told her he was going to start seeing one of the campus counselors. She was surprised. She thought, _but there’s nothing wrong with you, you’re the most well-adjusted person I’ve ever known in my entire life_. She only said, “Oh?” 

“It’s not that I’m having a problem or anything,” he said. “Actually, it’s because things are going so well for me that I want to get ahead of any issues that could come up. I’d like to make sure nothing is holding me back. It could be good to talk to someone about some things that happened when I was growing up, because I’d hate for any of that to hinder me later, when I could work through it now. You know?” 

“Sure,” she said. 

After that she had begun to resent him. Her affection crumbled quickly, and the relationship followed. She felt trapped, claustrophobic when she so much as saw she had a text from him. _What are you saying? You think I have issues? You think I need to seek help?_ she thought, whenever she remembered that conversation, the look of warmth and understanding in his eyes. _You don’t know me,_ she wanted to scream. Take him by his shoulders and shake, shout at him: _You don’t know me at all, I don’t need anything, I don’t need you._

What kind of a person went looking to solve problems before they were even problems? 

They never would have lasted. She ended things with him, and he seemed saddened, but not quite surprised. They parted amicably. 

The movies were her real love, anyway. 

She didn’t care that the dresser really was big enough for both Rose and Jack in _Titanic_. Who could ever get hung up on a thing like that? Didn’t they know this wasn’t the real glacial ocean, not really the black sea churning with sharks? This was something else—an idea about love. It had to die so that it could go on and become infinite. Had they both made it to shore, the real world would have swarmed over them like a plague of locusts. There would be bills, chores, tedium. Rose would start to long for the material things she had left behind to be with Jack, and resent him his status in life, his poverty, which she had so enjoyed playing dress-up in while on the ship, where it was contained to pantomime. It was better this way. He died and now he would never grow old, and the idea of eternal, youthful love lived on in the only place it had ever lived at all, safe inside a dream. 

She was eighteen when she gave her first audition. Two older men and a woman sat looking bored as she took the stage, shoulders back, chin up. _You must have good posture for the press. Keep that back straight, Number Three, and wipe that smirk off your face, Number Five._

She took a breath, and began. 

“I just couldn’t quit the damn smoking... My daughter, always used to play with my hair spray bottles... Ha, ha, so cute she was.” 

The lights were very bright. The room smelled of musty carpet and sawdust. 

“One day she was playing in the bathroom, while I was getting ready for work. Then the phone rang, the babysitter, and I was distracted.” 

The men and the woman were drinking coffee out of Styrofoam cups. One of the men sniffed loudly; a wet, congested noise. 

“That’s when my baby daughter sprayed her hair bottle just right... Caught fire to the bathroom towel, and to my daughter’s pretty face...” 

The woman was looking at her phone. One of the men had his pinkie finger in his ear, digging around, and then he looked at his finger. 

“When I saw her...I screamed...went to put the fire out...I put my hands all over her tender face while she kept screaming my name... I pulled her out of the bathroom, then back in the bathroom. I dunked her head in the toilet to put out the flames.” 

The other man tilted his cup back to drain the dregs, then peered down into it, frowning. She was sweating into her new shirt she’d bought to wear for just this very day. 

“My daughter is blind because of me... I took those beautiful eyes she had and singed them forever.” 

They hardly looked up at her. Her mind was blank, her body numb as she walked across the stage, toward the exit. Then she stopped. Pivot, walk back across the stage. Shoulders back, back straight, chin up. _You can’t expect to receive any handouts—whatever you want in life you will have to earn for yourself, Number Three, or else find some way to take it. I expect that shouldn’t be overly difficult for you._ Her eyes lifted to her audience, as if drawn by two strings. “I would appreciate some feedback. Please.” 

“We have a lot of auditions to get through,” said the woman. 

But they hadn’t even watched. Why hadn’t they watched? 

_Dad, look what I can do!_ Handstand in the sitting room, shirt falling down over her face so that she couldn’t see. When she toppled to the ground and looked around, he had left the room and she was alone. 

She wanted the part, but more than that, she wanted to know if she was good enough to have it. She deserved to know that. Everyone did, but only she had the power to make it happen. In life, whatever you can take belongs to you. 

“I heard a rumor that I got to go again,” she said. “And this time you pay attention.” 

She didn’t get that part. Or the next one, or the one after that. But after her second delivery, the woman said, “You have some potential. But who are you talking to? Where is the emotional core your character is speaking from?” 

She never would have asked those questions if Allison hadn’t made her listen, and Allison deserved to hear those questions. She didn’t know the answers. She thanked them for their time and left satisfied. 

“One two three four five six seven eight nine—okay. You’re going to marry the Griddy’s cashier and live in a shack with four kids and drive a Mustang.” 

Klaus shouted. She couldn’t tell if it was a sound of outrage or delight. “A shack?” 

“You came this close to marrying Pogo,” she said, holding up her fingers pinched together. 

Klaus gagged and Ben frowned at him. “That’s not very nice...” 

“Oh, so you want to marry Pogo? Okay then, your turn.” 

“I don’t want to marry anyone,” Ben said, scrunching his face. “Does that have to be one of the categories?” 

“Yes,” said Allison, tearing the page with Klaus’ MASH results out of her notebook and flipping it over, carefully setting the game back up on the other side. 

“Don’t be boring,” Klaus said. “My four kids need friends!” 

“I don’t want kids either, can it be pets instead?” 

She frowned at him. “No. These are the categories, it’s the rules.” She’d seen it on TV. She looked down at the paper, then had a thought she’d never had before. “Do you think our kids will have powers, too?” 

“Mine can turn invisible,” said Klaus. “I use them to steal things.” 

“No, like, in real life—your kids look like you, they get your hair color and stuff, so they’ll probably get our powers, too.” 

“Oh. I don’t know,” Klaus said, shrugging. “After you do Ben’s can you do mine again? Please?” 

“You don’t really think they will, do you?” Ben said, staring at the paper with wide eyes, hands twisting his jacket. “Put pets instead of kids.” 

“I hope my kids get my power,” she said. “I would already know how it works, so I could teach them so much faster.” 

“If you had invisible kids, do you think you’d lose them?” Klaus said. 

“Put pets instead, I’m not ever having any kids, I don’t care what this game says.” 

Klaus patted him on the back. “That’s okay, I have four, you can share.” 

She wasn’t paying attention to them anymore. She was thinking more thoughts that she’d never thought before. Would she dress her child in uniforms? Would they live together in this house, and go on missions together? That could be fun—that could be exciting, but— 

_I could do a much better job,_ she thought. _I could do so much better than him._

The therapist suggests that she begin to keep a journal. The instructions are irritatingly vague—when Allison presses her on what she should be writing about, she says whatever she notices or thinks throughout the day that she might like to bring up during their sessions. 

She buys a small notebook to keep in her purse. She sits on a bench and watches the people going by, afraid she will recognize someone, afraid she will not. She goes home to an empty apartment that still doesn’t feel like home, feels less so now that it holds the evidence of her life than it did when it was empty and she first moved in, a neutral space, unattached to herself. What is her purple kettle doing there sitting on that unfamiliar stove? It feels more like a set than a place she lives in. Whose life has she walked in on? 

She will see Claire soon. She will take her for ice-cream, to the park, to get their nails done. Anything. Anything she wants. What other mother has ever been able to promise she will get her daughter anything she wants, and mean it? 

The ex didn’t want her to see Claire, but just because he had won custody did not mean he had the right to stop her. She would win in the end. She was almost glad he’d betrayed her like this—it made it very simple to hate him instead of missing him. Or so she told herself. Who did he think he was? What did he know about anything? 

She would show him in the end, how fit she was to be a mother. Who knew better than she how to do the job? Who else on all the Earth knew her daughter better? Who, who could do better? 

If anyone could answer her that, and produce the miracle mother, she would step down at once. Let no one say she would do anything but the best for her daughter. 

In her earliest memories, she had six siblings. Two of them came to her wedding. 

“Well look at you,” she said, smiling easily as she greeted Diego at the reception. “I almost didn’t recognize you.” 

He grinned at her and she knew his joy was real. He had always worn his heart on his sleeve the most of all of them, though of course he’d have denied it. She knew she’d caught him crying during the ceremony. 

“Yeah, yeah. You’re welcome,” he said, tugging at his tie and grimacing. 

“There they are,” someone sang, and then Klaus was squeezing in between them, draping an arm across both their shoulders. “Allison, I’ve got a bone to pick with you, what gives with this no-boquet-throwing business? Save some holy matrimony for the rest of us, would you? You know I’ve always wanted to catch the boquet at a wedding, how am I ever crossing that off the bucket list now?” 

“I’m just glad you could both make it,” she said. “It’s been too long.” 

Klaus hummed, too loud, too close to her ear. “And then there were three...” 

Diego’s jaw tightened. “Don’t start.” 

“You’ve got to admit, we’re dropping like flies. I wonder who’s next?” 

“You, if you don’t shut it.” 

Klaus laughed, apparently delighted by the empty threat. “Didn’t invite our dear baby sister? I don’t blame you. Not after _that_ blistering expose. Have you read it? I keep my copy under the pillow, it gives me the most amazing dreams.” 

“I’m serious,” Diego growled. “Not tonight.” 

“I did invite Vanya,” she said. Her sister had sent along a card regretfully declining the invitation, along with a gift from their registry—a fancy coffee maker. 

Klaus gave a loud barking laugh right into Diego’s ear. “She didn’t even come to your wedding! Probably too scared, don’t you think? Worried you’d hex her? Make her think she was a frog or something?” he said, laughing and leaning his weight against the two of them. 

“Okay,” Diego said, tugging Klaus away from Allison but letting him keep his arm slung around his own shoulders. “I think we’re done with this topic. Let’s quit while we’re ahead for once, right, Four?” 

“Oh, I’m _Four_ now,” Klaus said, grinning at her. “I must be in trouble.” 

“Not yet,” Diego said, rolling his eyes. 

“There’s still time. The night is young.” 

Allison looked at her brothers and felt something in her chest clench. Perhaps it was her heart, but she could not be sure. “Seriously. Thank you both for being here.” 

“Aw,” Klaus crooned. 

Diego just nodded and smiled at her. “Don’t worry about this one, I’ll look out for him. You just enjoy yourself.” 

The reception was outdoors, but with all the light pollution there weren’t many stars, the sky a great blank. She couldn’t find the moon. 

Every couple months or so, some tabloid published speculation on how she had cheated her way into having a career. Sometimes if the news was slow, she made the front cover, and then in the supermarket checkout line, she’d find herself staring at some grainy image of a woman called Allison Hargreeves, her doppelganger, a woman they said was her but who she barely recognized. _Lies and Secrets of Hollywood’s Rising Star. Child Hero Turned Con Artist?_

If she was feeling morbid, sometimes she brought one of these magazines home and read about this Hargreeves woman—her incredible, tragic childhood; how she’d lost two brothers at an early age, how her father had made a public figure out of her when she was just a child; her hook-ups and break-ups, speculation on her marriage; her career as an actress, her talent, accusations of fraud. 

Patrick caught her reading them sometimes. “Are we divorced yet?” he’d ask, a running joke. Their impending divorce had been announced five times already. He didn’t like the press attention she got, but sometimes he’d text her a picture of a headline he saw at the store or in a waiting room. _Can’t believe I had to hear it like this! Just who am I married to?_

The speculation on her personal life was one thing. That had been going on as long as she could remember. It was the suggestion that she was only successful because of a rumor that got under her skin. 

“They don’t know a damn thing,” Patrick would say, abandoning the towel he’d been using to dry the dishes, coming up behind her while she was up to her elbows in soapy water, sliding his hands down her arms to grip her hips. “They’ve got no character, they’ll say anything to sell papers. If they knew your heart, they’d never have a thing to say against you.” 

His lips nibbling her ear, pressing at her temple. She tilted her neck, showing him where to touch, where to put his mouth. “You mean that?” 

“Of course I do. You’re perfect.” 

“Are you selling something? You know how I feel about flattery.” 

He knew she professed to be immune to it. He knew she opened up to praise like a flower turning towards the sun. 

“Not flattery,” he said. “Just the truth. I love you.” 

_I love_ _you,_ _I love you, I love you_. If that was true, why hadn’t it ever been enough? 

She thought that love could stand to be improved upon. Perhaps she was the one to give that gift to the world. 

It wasn’t a big deal. It was just that now and then, Klaus came by and asked for some money, and she gave it to him. No questions asked, no prying. Just a simple exchange. 

At least every time he came around, she knew he was still on his feet. 

Not very often, but every now and then, she and Diego talked on the phone. It wasn’t that they were avoiding each other—though they weren’t exactly seeking each other out, either. They lived in different cities. Time just kept accelerating every year, faster and faster. If Five was here, she’d ask him about that. 

He called her late one night. Patrick was already asleep, but she was up, watching a movie—some cheaply made rerun she’d seen a thousand times. Lots of car chases and dramatic monologues delivered with just moments to spare. 

“Didn’t expect you to pick up,” he said, by way of a greeting. 

“Hello to you too.” 

He didn’t ask why she was awake. He must not have wanted to answer himself. Instead, he said, “It’s been a while. Just thought I’d check in with you. See how things are.” 

“Everything’s great,” she said. 

She was negotiating the terms of her role in a new movie. All of a sudden, they wanted a topless scene. She’d refused on instinct, before giving the proposition any thought. It hadn’t been in the script, at least, not any script she’d read. What would it add to the movie that couldn’t be captured some other way? Why now? Her manager told her to think about it. Just think about it, that’s all anybody’s asking. She told him sure, she’d think about it, and then she didn’t. 

She told him about the new movie, how well it was going. She left out the part about them wanting her to take off her shirt. Then the conversation lulled. For a moment she drowsed, listening to the static on the line, unexpectedly comforted by the illusion of nearness to her brother. 

Then Diego said, “I fucked up.” 

Allison straightened up on the couch, pushing her hair out of her face. “What?” 

“I’m not in the academy anymore.” 

In the blue light of the television, she saw the tattoo on her wrist, and for a moment thought, _but neither am I, we quit a long time ago, didn’t we?_ Then she knew he meant the other academy. She forced her voice to be neutral when she spoke—if she allowed either disappointment or relief, he’d hang up. “What happened?” 

“It was too much bullshit. I couldn’t stand it anymore. What do they get off on, barking orders and shouting at me all the time? So I got mad. Big deal. I just don’t see how my ability to stomach bullshit or getting screamed at all day has anything to do with things. So I got in a fight with one of the other guys—well, big fucking deal, he was a prick, he deserved it. They should give me an award or something, but what do I get instead? Fine. Whatever. I’ll do it myself.” 

“You’ll do what yourself?” Quiet on the line. Soft blur of static in her ear. “You’ll do what yourself, Diego?” 

“Everything. But that’s nothing new. Can’t count on anyone but yourself.” 

She’d expressed the opinion to him before that perhaps there were better ways for him to answer his calling than by joining the police force. She’d been tactful about it, careful. It was the only way she knew how to maybe make him listen, but by then he didn’t want to listen, had already expended his patience for listening on Klaus, who’d mocked him and called him a bootlicker, little piggy. Told him he must really have a thing for authority figures, he’d been so quick to trade their old man in for a drill sergeant and all, and why didn’t he give up the whole rebel schtick and admit that deep down all he wanted was somebody to call him a good boy? 

That hadn’t gone over very well. 

She wasn’t going to bring any of that back up now. It wasn’t the time for gentle suggestions of what his next steps might be. She said, “I’m sorry, Diego. I know how much being part of all that meant to you.” 

“You never liked it.” 

“I understand you’re trying to find some way to be in this world that helps instead of hurts. I trust your judgement. If you couldn’t stand things there, then maybe that wasn’t the way after all. You’ll figure it out.” 

His laugh came through in a rush of static like a sudden gust of rain against a window screen. “At least one of us thinks so.” 

“I know so. So don’t beat yourself up or worry too much, okay?” 

“All right, all right. But only so you’re not worried.” 

She huffed a soft laugh under her breath. There was a secret thrill to this, these sporadic phone calls with Two, reminiscent of the way it was when they were children clutching stolen walkie-talkies, huddled under their bedcovers. 

They sat on the line for a while longer, listening to each other breathe. 

Two: Breaker 1-9, do you copy? Over. 

Four: Negatory, agent butt-face, I repeat, that’s a—ow, stop it! He’s pulling my ear! 

Two: Quit it, I’m serious, c-come on... 

Six: Um...what? Affirmative? Wait, I wrote them—hold on. 10-4? I can hear you, if that’s what you’re— 

Five: Can you idiots be quiet? I’m trying to work. 

Four: Roger that, Numero Cinco, agent butt-face over here just called you a big dumb— _krsh_ _,_ _krsh_. Okay, ow, stop it! 

Six: Are you two both in Diego’s room... 

One: It’s way past lights out, you guys, try to keep it down or we’re going to get caught. 

Four: Yeah we are and he’s being a _b_ — _krsh_ —ha ha, no, ha, please, seriously! What’s your twenty, Six? 

Three: I can hear you two buffoons all the way from over here. You’re going to get us all in trouble, quiet down. 

Six: Oh...okay. I didn’t know. I’m in your room, Four... 

Two: I wrote down the c-codes so all you guys would have them, it took a long time, why isn’t anybody using them? Over. 

Three: 10-44, Two. Is that right? Over. 

Two: 10-2, Three. That’s perfect. Over. 

Three: Great. Your voices are annoying and I can hear them through the walls, shut up. 

Five: Wait, did anybody give Seven a walkie-talkie? 

Two: ...Negatory. There weren’t enough. 

Four: I nominate Two to go and give his walkie to Seven, over. Sto- _op_ , I’ll bite you! 

Two: That’s disgusting! 

Six: It’s okay, she can share mine. Um...over. 

One: Be really quiet, Six, okay? Careful... 

Three: You are all. So. Loud. Are you trying to get caught? 

Two: Just forget it, you’re all hopeless...over. 

Seven: Hello? Is anyone there? 

She writes things in the journal when there is nothing else to do: in line, on the bus, in waiting rooms, in stand-still traffic. She writes grocery and to-do lists, contact information, appointment dates. 

Sometimes, she even writes for the therapist, things she knows she will never show her. 

—I want things, I get them, I don’t want them any more. Or else realize they weren’t really what I wanted. Never enough. What's missing? 

—Claire, Patrick 

—Was it really so wrong? What does everyone else know I don’t? 

—Sudden unexplainable rage 3:40 pm dizzy on the highway had to lie down 

—No one has ever known me 

—Never have been able to explain myself to anyone, make them understand 

—Aging mortality new feelings of placeless dread etc., can usually shake off soon enough but not always 

—Vanya 

—persistent feeling of guilt, what for? has been there a long time 

—Who are they to judge me? Who could ever understand? How things were, way we were raised, who I had to be, all to survive in that house, how dare they? 

—4 looked bad last time I saw him, where’s he sleeping? 

—Feel like am losing control, can’t stand that 

—Can’t go back, do it over again, better this time, why not? 

—child inside of me who never grew up 

She doesn’t say them out loud, hasn’t even made another appointment—but she thinks about it. 

The university near her new apartment hosts occasional star-watching nights, where the astronomy labs are made open to the public. She dresses in black and gray like a mourner, hoping not to draw attention to herself, and walks along amid the groups of students, the families, the young couples holding hands. 

“Look at Saturn,” says a woman with graying hair. 

The young girl with her peers into the telescope, then pulls back. “It’s exactly how it is in the pictures.” 

Is anything ever the way it is in a picture? 

The full moon hangs overhead like the glass New Year’s ball—breakable, like something about to fall and shatter. A moon like a guillotine blade. The back of her neck prickles when she leans in to press her eye to the telescope. 

Well, there it is. Round and glowing milk-white and despite the calcified shell around her heart, hardened against wonder, something tugs in her chest, her stomach, her brain. She thinks, _for god’s sake, it’s just a great big rock, don’t start writing sonnets. Don’t get caught up._ But she doesn’t believe in her own cynicism, not just then. Not with the whole of the moon right there, like something she could press her fingers to and touch. Her eyes drink it in—the craters, the pockmarks, the odd wrinkles like the long-dried trails of ancient rivers. Nothing living, nothing human. Nothing, nothing. She gets dizzy, has to step back, her heart in her throat, beating fast, so fast she can taste it, bitter and metallic, her own bitter heart beating in her throat. 

The girl was right—it really does look just like the pictures. 

She had forgotten what a poor housemate Klaus was. 

For the first day or so, he kept quiet as a church mouse, which was easy for him, since he spent most of his time asleep in the guest room. Or...what had been a guest room, but was now undergoing a slow metamorphosis into a nursery, a process put on halt by her brother’s arrival at their door, looking frighteningly thin and strung-out, asking if she had any place he could crash for a few nights, a couch, something. 

Of course she said yes. 

He ate at the table with them, and hovered in the doorway while they did the dishes, cracking a couple of off-color jokes, but overall his manner was more subdued than she’d seen in...she couldn’t remember when. Then she led him to the guest room, where they’d painted the walls a pale, buttery yellow. Klaus looked around the room, suddenly mute and solemn, and she’d shoved an extra blanket at him and left before they had to talk about the baby. 

Then the pacing started. Every time she woke in the night, there was the sound of his restless footsteps going up and down, up and down. The sound ground itself into her head even as she slept, and she had strange, anxious dreams that left her tired when she woke. 

The next morning, she found him drowsing on the sofa, some sitcom playing on the television. He looked up and smiled at her, gave a sleepy wave. 

“There’s a perfectly good bed for you,” she said. “Is there a reason you’re on the couch?” 

His tired eyes were dark and knowing. He said, “Is there a reason I haven’t gotten a shower invite?” 

She froze for only a second, before turning away to busy herself in the kitchen, putting the coffee on. “Where would I have sent it?” 

He hummed, face propped on his hand, fingers tapping against his face. “Fair.” Then he smiled at her. “A grandbaby Hargreeves. Dad’s going to be thrilled.” 

“He’s got nothing to do with it,” she snapped. Pause, deep breath. Reign that anger in, that hurt, that fear. “It’s my child,” she said, voice low and steady. “Not his. He won’t have anything to do with it.” 

“I’m going to be an uncle,” Klaus said, staring off into space, a faraway look on his face, a vacant grin. “Huh. Never really thought I’d see the day.” 

“Why not?” 

He shrugged. He was quiet while she poured coffee in three mugs. When she handed him his, he looked up at her and said, “Are you sure about this?” 

“About what?” she said, her voice steely. 

“You know what.” 

She made her face a blank mask. “I have to get to work.” 

“I’m just saying—” 

“I don’t want to hear it,” she said, turning away, leaving him there, crumpled on the sofa. 

_What do you know about being a mother? Are you sure you’re ready for this? Are you sure you won’t fuck up?_

What did she need him voicing her own doubts for, when she remembered them herself every day? 

Diego called her again, and this time he got right to it. “So Klaus is staying with you.” 

“That’s right,” she said, one hand on the wheel, stuck in traffic. 

“How long?” 

“I don’t know, Diego. Until he’s got someplace to stay, I guess.” 

“I know he asks you for money.” 

“And that’s your business because?” 

“He asks me, too. Difference is, you keep giving it to him.” 

“Diego, I’m really not in the mood to do this right now.” 

“Then when?” 

“What do you want from me? Turn him down, send him away?” 

“You’re enabling him.” 

“I’m enabling him,” she said, her voice dead and flat. “Okay, Two. So you’d rather he didn’t have money for food, or a place to stay? Then what do you think will happen?” 

“That money doesn’t get spent on food or a place to stay, Three.” 

“What am I supposed to do, huh? What do you want me to do? I’m all ears. This is the best I’ve got right now. If I stop giving him money, what if he stops coming around? At least this way I still see him, he knows he can come to me if he needs help, and I don’t have to think—I don’t wonder where he is, if he’s hungry—as long as he’s in my house, I know he’s safe.” 

“You’re not home right now, are you?” 

“I have to work, Diego, I can’t just—” 

“I know that. But so, you can’t be there all the time, you can't say he’s safe. You don’t know—you haven’t seen him when he’s really bad.” 

“Oh, fuck off.” 

“I’m serious.” 

“Don’t you dare. I may not have been there as fast as you, but don’t you dare say I don’t know what—I was there in the hospital, same as you, I saw him. What do you think I’m trying to prevent here? You’d really just turn him away, so he could go and—he’s our brother, Two.” 

“I know that. That’s why I’m trying to look out for him.” 

“Well, when you figure out a way to actually do that, that isn’t me turning him out, you let me be the first to know.” 

“Allison, come on, I’m just—we should talk about this.” 

“I know. But I don’t know what else to do. I can’t just turn him away.” 

“You will, though. When it gets bad. And then where will he be?” 

She hung up on him. When she got home, Klaus wasn’t there. She was up all night until she heard the door open at three, heard him collapse on the couch, and only then could she fall into a fitful sleep. 

“How long is your brother going to be here for?” Patrick asked. 

Allison let the silverware crash into the sink full of soapy water with a harsh clatter. “I don’t know,” she said, without turning around to look at him, wrenching her sleeves up to her elbows. “Why?” 

“...I was just asking.” 

“Oh. Well, sorry, that’s all I can say. I don’t know.” 

“Is he...looking for another place?” 

She rolled her shoulders back, trying to loosen the tension winding through every muscle. “I haven’t talked to him about it.” 

“Allison.” His hand pressed against her shoulder, going up and down lightly before gliding to rest on her lower back. “I’m not trying to antagonize you, so try not to get defensive with me, please? I just think we should talk about this.” 

“About what?” 

“You know what.” 

“He’s got nowhere to go right now, Patrick. If he did, he wouldn’t be here. Trust me.” A bitter laugh escaped before she could cut it off. 

“I’m not asking you to tell him to leave, I—” 

“Good, because you’ve got no right.” 

He was quiet for a moment, hand pressing at her back, before he said, his voice low: “I just want everything to be ready, when the baby gets here. I know you want that too.” 

Her grip on the silverware in the sink tightened until her forearms were rigid. She stood stiff and still until he moved away and left her there, hands cramping in the water. It took a force of will to loosen her grip. 

Later, Patrick would say, _You_ _need help, you’re sick, I don’t believe it’s your fault, it’s how you were raised, you can’t help being that way, but by god, Allison, let somebody in—I wish it could have been me, but as long as it’s somebody._ Later, after one simple slip of the tongue, something any mother in her position would have done, to soothe a tired child who didn’t want to sleep. It would be cruel not to. Such a waste. Later, she would try to reason with him, only to realize that some people can’t be reasoned with. Then she would plead, and beg, and try to explain, and when that didn’t work—when she had wasted her breath on explanations she never should have had to give—she would tell him that if that was what he thought of her, then he’d never loved her at all. He would say that wasn’t true at all—he had loved her. Had loved her. Loved her. Loved. 

Nothing lasted. The man on the radio she listened to in the car as she drove away from the house with all her things packed in boxes said that to live meant having to someday wave bye-bye to everything and everyone she had ever loved. But why? Really, everything and everyone she loved? Was there maybe an opt-out button somewhere? What a downer—she hadn’t signed up for that, not at all. What was so wrong about trying to change things? To make something that would last? 

She’d find the right string of words someday, the magic words that would conjure the long-dead childhood pet rabbit back out of the hat, whole and healthy, and everyone would scream with joy when they saw that everything was saved, because she had seen that it was good and should be so. 

She found the baggy of white powder perched on the rim of the sink, and knew that he’d wanted her to find it. Klaus was asleep on the couch when she wrenched the blinds open to let the midday sun in and yanked the blanket off of him. He came awake all at once with a gasp, limbs jerking out as if to ward someone off, his face wild and undone for a second, and she felt sick to her stomach but her face was a perfect mask as she told him that she needed more from him. 

“Are you even trying? I want you here, Klaus, but I need you to try, because right now it feels like you want me to get angry with you, and you think I don’t get that, but I do, okay? I know this game—you take, and take, and push somebody until you find their breaking point, until they have no choice but to start pushing back, pushing you away from them, because then you get to say that you were right all along and this is just one more rejection, one more proof that you’re a fuck-up and can’t be helped and that nobody’s ever going to stick around for you, because you won’t let them, Klaus, you won’t let anybody help you. You think I don’t know that much? But I don’t want to play that game with you. I won’t.” 

He stared up at her, clutching the blanket in his lap, and he was so thin, and so pale, and so difficult to love. “Or maybe,” he said, “I really am an irredeemable fuck-up, and the idea you can’t reform me with your nice house and your hospitality just offends your sensibilities. Or maybe...” he said, hand on his chin, a grin spreading across his face, his wide eyes rolling around the room, “or maybe you’re getting tired of playing house, because deep down you know that whatever’s wrong with me...it’s the same thing that’s wrong with you.” He grinned at her, delighted. It didn’t reach his eyes. “Is that it? Am I getting warmer? Oh, Allison. Don’t tell me you don’t have a self-destructive streak. You let me into your house, after all. You let me sleep in your kid’s nursery. Allison, Allison, Allison...you should really listen to that man of yours, and start child-proofing the place, don’t you think? So many breakables, so many edges, all those sockets. I think you’ve got your work cut out for you without worrying about me.” 

“Get your shit together. Whatever you need, I’ll help you with—but you’ve got to put in some goddamn effort.” 

She turned then and stalked away from him, went to hide in her bedroom, where she could let herself shake and blink the tears from her eyes. 

In the end, he won—she had to tell him to leave. 

He never left anywhere, until he’d worn out his welcome. She saw the look of vindication in his eyes, the triumph of having known he was too much and would break her, and being right. 

She knew that feeling. That urge to set herself on fire, burst her chest open and let all the mess inside explode across the room. Let it be somebody else’s problem, someone else’s mess to clean up. She couldn’t help what she was. She was what the world had made her to be. Fuck the world that had made her. Yes, she knew that feeling. 

But she wasn’t going to do it. No. Who was it who said the best revenge was living well? Not that all this success was only a matter of spite, no, not exactly. She was her own person, after all—an adult now, making a life for herself, with a house and a marriage and a career, and a child on the way. You didn’t build all that on spite alone. 

She was going to be so much better than she’d been made to be. So much better that no one would ever be able to reduce her to her father’s daughter ever again. 

“I really don’t know why I’m here,” she says, smiling at her therapist. “I don’t need to be.” 

“Sometimes we all just need to be heard.” 

She could laugh, but she’s too good an actress to give herself away. She knows that now—she has even fooled the therapist. Even the therapist doesn’t think she needs therapy, imagine that, she must really have a talent. She feels light and free and giddy, as though she’d just gotten away with something. 

“Exactly,” she says, and she knows her own smile to be radiant. “It’s not that I have any problems, really. Actually, I think it’s because things are going so well for me that I decided to come. I wouldn’t want anything to be holding me back, not if I can help it. You know?” 

They handed down her daughter and she took her in her arms and held her to her chest, where her tiny body fit just right. Her skin was flushed and sticky with sweat. The baby cried. She was so small. She was so perfect. Was it possible she had really made her? That she had come from her? 

“Hello, sweetheart,” she whispered. “Hello, Claire, hello, darling.” 

When she looked into her daughter’s small, scrunched face, she felt something delicate and fragile open up inside of her, like discovering a new organ for the first time, flowering in the dark depths of herself, something she had thought she was missing or that had already been ruined, trampled and stained, but no, it was perfect, and she knew that love was enough, that she had enough love to raise this child on love alone, and she saw that through some grace she had not known existed that she got to do everything over again, but better this time. She could start again and get everything right. 

She held her baby close and began to sing. 


End file.
